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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Did a strength-training session tonight in my makeshift home gym, but before that happened, I did something rather unorthodox for tonight's pre-lifting warm-up:

OK, I'm going to reveal something that few of us are probably brave enough to publicly admit, let alone blog about: Yes, I danced around the room all by myself in my own living room. (In case you were wondering, the blinds were, in fact, closed, thank you very much!) Imagine me breaking out into a dance, perhaps in a scene not altogether unlike the one from Risky Business, except with a very different soundtrack (not exactly a big Bob Seger fan!), and also replace the cool sunglasses & white button-down shirt with workout attire. ;-)

I just rocked out & let loose! Danced to some great electronic music with a heavy drums & bass -- It had this really pulsating, driving dance beat! It felt great!

As I flew around the house with wild abandon, my cats were eying me in a peculiar, wide-eyed way, which made me laugh. Thankfully, they were the only witnesses to my extravagant performance that evening. LOL! ;-)

Not surprisingly, I'd just finished watching the movie, Shall We Dance? earlier in the evening, & it really had put me in the mood to dance. ;-)

Those of you fanciful souls who love to dance (&/or watch others dance) will know what I'm talking about here. You can't help but be moved by watching two elegant figures glide across the dance floor, their bodies moving in complete synchronicity to the music. Their graceful movements ebb and flow, and you watch transfixed. When they lean back, they almost appear to be suspended in time, pausing briefly like two frozen ice figurines, entwined in a beautiful pose. Their dance is a breathtaking emotional journal, and like Gene Kelly in Brigadoon, you are temporarily transported to another world. Moreover, you become involved in their secret, internal universe, wrapped up in their intimacy of the moment.

Perhaps the mood seizes you after watching a particularly wistfully romantic scene, which then leads into a dance number. Maybe you are watching the mambo scene from West Side Story, or the graceful bends and dips of ballet dancers performing Swan Lake, or the magical pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers lilting around the ballroom floor, light as air and dressed to the nines.

Those of you who truly love and understand the emotion of the dance, will know what I mean. There's a part of you inside that's literally moved, and you just can't sit still. You've got to get up and dance.

Speaking of which, I really miss dancing -- I took ballet, tap, jazz, modern dance, etc., for several years. Also took ballroom (foxtrot, waltz, etc.) & latin (salsa, meringue, cha cha, rumba, mambo, Argentinean tango, etc.) Hell, I even break-danced back in the 80's, believe it or not! ;-) Also especially love to freeform dance, & "back in the day" used to go clubbing all the time with my girlfriends, dancing until the very early hours of the morning. We would dance for several hours straight -- We just kept going & going. Our energy was boundless! It was a fantastic workout, & loads of fun! Dancing is something that I just really love; there's so much joy in it & it's such a freeing thing.

Would like to take ballroom dancing lessons again & am going to do my best to convince Erik to join me.... ;-)

OK, and now I will gravitate back to earth, and finish reporting the remainder of the evening's workout activities. ;-)

So, after that lovely little side-excursion into the world of dance, I did 25 push-ups, 300 crunches, & a whole host of free-weight exercises: Using 10-lb. weights, I did 70 standing, (weighted) calf-raises, 20 shoulder shrugs, & 1 set of 20 reps for each arm of the following exercises --side bends and one arm rows. And then, using 5-lb. weights, I did 1 set of 25 reps for each arm of the following exercises --concentration curls, shoulder presses, front shoulder raises with forearms parallel to the ground, front shoulder raises with forearms perpendicular to the ground, pectoral flyes (pec deck), & alternating dumbbell curls.

OK, that does it for my report of tonight's strength-training workout.

9 comments:

I'll admit, dancing movies don't interest me that much, but my wife can watch them over and over again.

I'm looking forward to when she gets out of school and we can take ballroom and latin lessons again. They were a lot of fun, but we just didn't have the time or money and we quit after her first semester.

Nothing like dancing silly in your privacy of your own home. Some of my favorite mornings are when my wife and I wake up, getting ready in the morning, and just dance.300 crunches? I think I would be bent over in the fetal position. Keep it up.

I've never seen the American version of Shall We Dance?, but the Japanese version rocks! It was mainstream here in US theaters about 10 years ago, so you could probably get it through NetFlix or something.

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